The Painting
by moredibell
Summary: During a fire at a nightclub, Anna meets a firefighter.


**Disclaimer:** Transformative work as always.

 **In Case You Missed It:** Written for whitefeather79's fifth place prize in my one hundred Tumblr followers giveaway.

 **Thanks To:** caffeinatedzayl777, for serving as a beta!

 **Updates:** For anyone who wonders if Anna and Elsa or The Ice Statue of Arendal will ever be updated... the answer is no. They will remain up until I have subsumed them into a larger work where they fit better. Hopeless Desire is undergoing an extensive rewrite process, and when that is completed, I will properly post the story.

 **The Painting**

At just nineteen years old, Anna Brannild thought life couldn't possibly get any better. She was attending Smith College, she had found her estranged sister—well, estranged was the wrong word, really; it was their parents who were estranged, and they'd just been caught up in the middle of it—and there were so many hot guys in Northampton that she'd been on a date every week since she got here, and hadn't repeated the same guy. Fine; if she could just find one guy to date regularly, then life would be just perfect.

She rapped at Elsa's bedroom door. "Elsa, you told me you didn't need more than twenty minutes!"

"If I had something to wear, I would have been out ages ago," Elsa said, opening the door. "But I do not seem to have anything that will catch a pretty girl's eye."

"Uh..."

"You keep forgetting I am a lesbian?"

Anna nodded, blushing. "There're just so many other interesting things about you."

"I... suppose I will take that as a compliment." Elsa sighed. "Do I have _anything_ that would make a girl notice me?"

"How am I supposed to know? I like boys!"

"...you wanted to live together and get all the sister-type interactions we missed out on. And I am reliably informed that helping sisters to get their marks by assisting with clothing is one of those interactions. So help me!"

Anna rolled her eyes. "Um... wait, six months ago, you bought this dress that you absolutely had to have, and I don't think I've ever seen you wearing it. Why not that?"

Elsa's eyes widened, before she slammed the door in Anna's face.

TPTP

Elsa had disappeared off onto the dance floor with some Scottish redhead archer type, and Anna was sitting at the bar, drowning her sorrows. A couple of guys had asked her to dance; they'd been total creeps, so she'd refused. She _had_ accepted a dance offer from a girl that had refused Elsa's attempt to pick her up—maybe some decent guys would ask them to dance!—but the girl had been asked to dance, and Anna had been left to return to the bar.

Checking her purse, Anna swore under her breath; she was out of ready cash for drinks, which was a sign she should head home. Shoving her purse back into her bag, she headed to the bathroom. It was empty, and Anna proceeded to do her business. As she was washing her hands, she heard a crash, followed by an explosion, from outside the bathroom. Swallowing a shriek, Anna grabbed a bunch of paper towels, drying her hands and yanking the door open on a scene from hell.

She slammed the door shut on the flames, looking around the bathroom. There was one window, and it was even at a height Anna could manage. It was also far too small for anyone but a child to get through. Anna grabbed her phone, dialling the emergency services.

"What is your emergency?"

"A fire broke out at the nightclub I'm in," Anna said. She was glad her voice stayed steady.

"Where is the nightclub located, ma'am?"

Anna opened her mouth and then closed it. "Um... you're not going to believe me."

"We're already aware of—and have sent firefighters to respond to—the fire at the Flaming Fires, ma'am, if that's what you mean."

"Yes. Thank you. Please hurry; I'm trapped in the bathroom!"

Ending the call, Anna paced around the bathroom, turning back to watch the smoke billowing into the bathroom. Biting her lip, she dropped to the floor. Though the floor was tacky with whatever people had tramped over it, Anna could tell it had been mopped sometime in the past eight hours... but she was still going to throw away her clothes _and_ take the longest, hottest shower or bath she'd ever had once she was out of here. The smoke continued to billow in, clogging the room. Anna considered breaking the window for fresh air, deciding not to chance it moments later as visibility worsened. She modulated her breathing to short, shallow intakes, beginning to pray.

Anna didn't believe one _had_ to participate in organised religion, though she was sure that a higher power existed. (Elsa believed in some chaos and discord goddess thing—Anna hadn't really paid attention during that conversation.) Thus, she prayed.

She prayed for absolution, for rescue.

Anna made no promises in return; she was far too acquainted with humanity's inner nature to get what they wanted and fail to deliver on what they had promised in return. She _wanted_ to think herself better than that, but she was as human as anyone else.

At long last, Anna heard a thunderous crack, and the wall of the bathroom fell down. She still felt the heat of the fire, smelled the thick, acrid smoke, but now water and semi-fresh air was added to her senses, and the first stirrings of hope filled her heart. She peered through smoke, seeing the outline of a tall, broad-shouldered man. As he came closer, stepping over wood fragments, Anna saw that he was wearing a stained and torn firefighter's garb. She thought there was something wrong with it—but the half formed thought flew away as the man kneeled, shaggy blond hair obscuring his face, and picked her up, holding her close. Anna relaxed into him, smelling smoke and burnt wood.

"Um... is it socially inappropriate to ask you out on a date?" she said.

The man said nothing, but Anna felt him react to that suggestion, and she stifled a giggle as he turned around and retraced his steps. Anna buried her face in his shoulder; being carried was somewhat comforting, and it felt familiar. That thought seemed utterly weird, and she dismissed it.

"Are we out of there?"

She looked up. They were out in the street. A huge crowd milled around, corralled in by police to let the paramedics and firefighters do their jobs. The firefighter kept a firm hold of her, and began to walk away from the street.

"Hey! Put me down! My sister is waiting for me!"

Indeed, Elsa was sitting on the back of an ambulance, her face even paler than normal, her dress smoke stained and burnt in patches. Across from her was an ambulance transport bed, and Anna could see the red hair of the Scottish girl as paramedics attempted life-saving treatment right there in the street. As Anna watched, the paramedics exchanged looks and stepped back, drawing a sheet over the girl. Elsa let out a choked sob, turning to another paramedic and engaging him in a conversation that Anna couldn't hear.

Anna squirmed out of the firefighter's hold, running towards her sister, half expecting the firefighter to come after her... but she heard no pursuit, and stopping, she turned back around. He gazed at her with a sad expression before he gave a slow nod, and walked away.

TPTP

Anna woke the next day, smiling as dreams of the firefighter floated through her memory. Reviewing her mental list for the day, she decided there was nothing she absolutely couldn't put off, which meant she had a free day to track down the firefighter. Leaving her room, she found the apartment empty, and she smiled a little. Elsa would never change; she just couldn't stay in the apartment much longer than it took to have a meal... or sleep.

She puttered around in the kitchen a little before going to have a shower. As Anna opened the door, it occurred to her that contrary to her wishes, she hadn't had a shower or bath last night.

"No reason to not have it now," she said, stripping her clothes off and filling the tub.

Anna spent the better part of an hour soaking in the tub before she was disturbed by sirens. Bolting upright, she heard the crackle of flames licking at the bathroom door.

"...oh, you've got to be kidding me," she said, getting out of the bath and wrapping a towel around herself. Opening the door, a wave of heat hit her, and the wailing sirens increased in volume. Looking around, Anna saw that apartment was full of flames, though no roofing or walls had fallen down as had happened at the club. She looked across at the balcony, seeing the open door—the complex had a pool, and long ago, Elsa and she had joked about diving into the pool from their balcony. The pool was practically under their balcony, so it was plausible...

The firefighter stepped onto the balcony.

Anna inhaled, slow shallow breaths filling her lungs. The firefighter waved a hand at her, beckoning her, and Anna broke into a run. Flames licked at her towel and skin; she ignored them, and as she exited onto the balcony, she grabbed the railing, and using her momentum, launched herself up and over the balcony, falling straight into the pool.

As she fell, Anna looked up, and the firefighter once more looked at her with a sad expression and a slow nod before he walked into the apartment. Anna wondered if maybe she should've said something about no one else being present... and then she hit the water.

Consciousness dissolved.

TPTP

Consciousness reasserted itself, and Anna thrashed her limbs, coughing as she broke the water's surface. Dragging herself out of the pool, she looked up at the blackened and smoking ruins of what had once been an apartment building. Firefighters milled around, though it seemed the paramedics had gone, if they had been there at all. Leaning against the fence, she wrung out her hair, belatedly realising her nakedness. Across from the pool was a washing line, and she pulled a skirt and over-large t-shirt from the line. Going barefoot wasn't going to be fun, but at least she was clothed.

"I don't understand," she said, and her voice seemed faint and ethereal to her ears. "What does that firefighter _want_?"

She looked over to where the firefighters milled, and saw no one that even came close to matching her firefighter's looks. Suppressing a scowl, she looked back up at the apartment building. She needed to find Elsa, and they needed to find a new building to live in. Maybe their mother would take pity on them and send them money.

"And perhaps mother has realised being a lesbian is no big deal," Anna muttered to herself before scanning the crowd. She saw no sign of Elsa, and after a mental review of Elsa's usual Saturday itinerary, Anna decided Elsa was at the library... if not on her way to what remained of the apartment. Her phone and purse had been lost in the nightclub fire, and Anna wasn't sure what had happened to Elsa's phone.

Muttering under her breath, Anna began to navigate her way to the library. The apartment's proximity to the library was the only thing Anna liked about the location—going anywhere else meant driving or taking public transport. Maybe Elsa would think more seriously about getting an actual house now... Anna would have to sacrifice the library, not to mention the park 'attached' to the library, but that'd be more than compensated by being able to order out _and_ have it delivered.

A car drove past, and Anna blinked, staring after it.

"Mother?" she said, breaking into a run. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She was able to keep the car in view, and as she reached the library, Anna saw Elsa sitting at a picnic table. Anna approached the table, just beating her mother there. She sat next to Elsa, and their mother sat across from Elsa.

"You have no phone," Idunn said. "I imagine you haven't heard that there was a fire at your apartment. The building's a total loss."

Elsa shrugged. "There is insurance. I never kept much of importance there; it was a place between homes..." She sighed, staring at the table, nails tracing the wood grain.

"Are you well?"

Anna debated mentioning she'd escaped the fire, and decided against it. No need to make anyone worry when she wasn't injured. "I'm fine. Sort of hungry, I suppose. I haven't had time for breakfast."

Elsa shrugged again. "Considering the circumstances... as well as could be expected. There was a red haired Scottish girl I was dancing with last night. She did not make it, and all I could tell the paramedics was that she was in her first year at Smith, and excelled at archery. Her identification was lost in the fire, and I only recognised her because of the remains of her dress."

Idunn nodded. "There are arrangements—"

"Smith can wait," Elsa said, her hand clenching around the table. "A place to stay can wait. It can all just... _fucking_ wait."

"You know that's not true," Idunn said.

"What the fuck do you care?" Elsa said, her voice rising into a shriek. "When the _fuck_ have you ever given one damn about me or Anna!? You kept me and Anna apart for years; we didn't even _know_ the other existed until last year, and that was only because Agdar told Anna, and you haven't spoken to me in ten years since I told you I was gay. It was SO MUCH FUN, navigating my teenage years without any actual fucking guidance!"

Anna's eyes widened; Elsa had never said things had been that bad. Looking across at Idunn, Anna saw her guilty expression.

"I was wrong," Idunn said. "I don't ask for your forgiveness, only for a second chance. If you'll give it... and I don't expect you to, honestly."

Elsa collapsed against the table, sobbing. Anna placed her hand over Elsa's.

"We need a place to live," Anna said. "Can you help?"

Idunn waited until Elsa's sobbing had subsided, before she drummed her fingers against the table. As Elsa looked up, fumbling for her bag, Idunn pulled out a cheque book, along with her purse.

"I never liked you living in an apartment," she said. "However, that may just be an old lady's bias." Idunn paused, but Elsa was in no mood to give her usual rejoinder of 'you are not that old', and Idunn went on, her brow creasing. "I was far more concerned with the location you chose than I was with its being an apartment. So. Here we are." She wrote out a cheque, placing a stack of fifty dollar notes on top of it. "The money should get you a place to stay for a while, and the cheque is blank on the amount and the payee. I've let my bank know that the cheque is to be processed at once and the funds made available instantly. One restriction: the cheque pays for a _house_. I want you in a safer neighbourhood than you were."

Elsa scowled, snatching up the cash and cheque. "Thank you," she said, looking at the table.

Idunn stood up, and Elsa hauled herself up moments later. As Anna got up, the table burst into flames.

"What the hell!?" Elsa said, jumping back. Her hands scrabbled for a phone, and by the time she'd realised she had no phone, her mother was already on the phone to emergency services.

Anna stared at the burning table, and then looked around, frowning. As she suspected, the firefighter stood across the way. She sighed, walking away from her mother and sister. The firefighter stayed where he was, and Anna stopped a little ways away from him.

"What do you want?" she said. "I don't understand... please. Help me."

The firefighter extended a hand to her, and Anna looked back at her family. Turning back to the firefighter, she read the earnest, hopeful expression in his eyes and she sighed. This close, she could smell smoke on him, and she remembered lying in the bathroom, waiting for rescue. Shaking her head to clear it, Anna reached out and placed her hand in his.

Touching him brought back memories of the nightclub, and Anna let out a pain filled moan, her skin prickling with heat, the smell of burning hair filling her nose. The flames had sprung up too strongly, too quickly for anyone in the nightclub to have a hope of fighting them. She'd been lucky to escape into the bathroom, even if she was trapped in there. She'd waited... and waited...

"Why?" she said, and her voice was plaintive. "I waited... and..."

The man kissed her forehead, and Anna shuddered, hot tears splashing down her cheeks.

TPTP

The alarm went off. No attempt was made to end it, and after a minute and a half, it ceased by itself. Elsa tilted her head towards her phone as it ceased to ring, before resuming her original position, staring at the ceiling.

"I have to get up," she said. Voicing the requirement made it seem more real, but also gave it weight, and Elsa closed her eyes. Always the good girl, always the concealing of feelings—it was what had been expected of her for longer than she could remember. Opening her eyes, Elsa pushed back the covers, sitting up. A rapping noise sunk into her consciousness, and she turned her head to look at the door.

"Elsa... are you up?" The voice was clear enough, though the door was closed.

Elsa slid out of bed. "I... yes. I apologise... it... it's hard."

"Do you need anything? I've washed your clothes and ironed them; they should be hanging up."

Elsa shrugged, looking over at the dress on the hanger. An ice blue bra and panty set was in front, and Elsa shook her head.

"I just need to shower and dress. I will have some fruit for breakfast. If that could be ready..."

"Of course."

With another look at the dress, Elsa trudged into the bathroom. She stripped, turning the water on as hot as she could stand it, and stepped under the spray. She went through her usual routine, before sinking to the shower tiles and wrapping her arms around herself. she drifted off into her own little world, until another rapping sound echoed in the bathroom.

The water was cold. Elsa didn't care.

"Are you okay, sweetie?"

Elsa got up, turning the water off. Stepping out onto the mat, she grabbed a towel and started to dry off.

"Well enough," she said. "I..."

"Don't apologise."

Elsa closed her mouth on another apology, and continued to towel herself dry. Tucking the towel around herself, she started the hair dryer and directed the airflow over her hair for a couple of minutes. The task didn't get much thought, and as she walked back into her room, her hair was still damp. She snagged the underwear, letting the towel drop. Inside of five minutes, Elsa was dressed in the knee-length dress, and she was braiding her hair with the simplest braid she knew. A light touch of eyeshadow was the only makeup she deigned to apply, and with that done, Elsa stared at herself in the mirror.

Descending downstairs, she accepted the plastic container of fruit.

"I need to go do something," she said, her eyes distant. "Two o'clock; I will be there."

Ignoring the protests, Elsa turned on her heel and left the house.

TPTP

Elsa stopped outside the fire station, checking her outfit, and once satisfied she was presentable, she walked inside.

"Can I help you?" a woman in firefighter's garb said, looking at her.

"Last weekend, there was a fire at the Flaming Fires nightclub," Elsa said. "I hoped anyone who had responded to it might be on duty... I wanted to thank them."

The woman nodded, a sympathetic look crossing her face. "I think we have two members on, yes. Come into the office. We can talk better there."

As Elsa entered the office, she looked around, freezing as she saw a painting on the wall. A man stood in the resplendent uniform of the firefighter, blond hair combed in a neat fashion that didn't do much to hide its shagginess, and next to him, almost a foot shorter, stood a woman in a fancy green dress, her red hair coiffed in a style almost a hundred years out of fashion. Elsa stumbled over to a chair, pointing at the painting.

"Who... who are they?"

The woman looked at Elsa's pale face and then across to the painting. A sad look crossed her face, but she poured a glass of water and handed it to Elsa before taking a seat.

"Back in the 1930s, the station's Chief was a Kristoff Bjorgman," the woman said. "Best Chief this station's ever had, it was said. There was a girl he'd grown up with, and as soon as she was eighteen, they married. Anna, her name was. Every Friday night, Anna would go dancing with some of her women friends, and sometimes that'd include her sister. Very reclusive, that sister, but given what happened, she may well have had reason."

"What do you mean?"

"They hadn't been married but two years when Anna went dancing as she always did, and on this occasion brought her sister along to take her mind off some suitor, it's said. Now... whether this suitor really did cause the fire or not... a fire _did_ break out at the nightclub. The station responded, of course—Kristoff led the team. And bless him, he was as concerned about Anna as anyone... but he did his duty. When he finally found her, she was in the bathroom, dead."

Elsa gripped her glass tight, her breaths shallow.

"The fight went out of him," the woman said, shaking her head. "He stayed Chief, he kept on with the work... but without Anna, he wasn't the man he'd been. We had to force him into retirement when he was eighty... but he would come here every day still to sit and look at the painting. We offered to let him have it—it's a nice memorial to our best ever Chief, yes, but we don't need it. He refused; he wanted to come here and see it."

"He's dead, then?"

The woman sobered, looking at her hands. "The nightclub where Anna died... owners rebuilt the building, and it was used for all sorts of different things in the years following. I guess circles meet themselves again, because the last thing it was... was another nightclub. When the call came in that there was a fire... and a girl was trapped in the bathroom... he had a heart attack. He was gone before anyone could do anything. But at least he was with Anna again."

Elsa looked up at the painting again, standing up.

"Thank you for your time."

She strode to the door, halting as she reached it.

"Anna died alone," she said. "Limbs burned and lungs seared. She must have wondered where Kristoff was, and died in hopes so vain. Neither could leave without the other... he wasn't with Anna when he died. But he was free to look for her... free to regain her trust and belief."

The woman stared at her. "Did he?"

Elsa shrugged. "Who knows the ways of discordant spirits who tread the paths so trodden before? One can do no more than hope... and perhaps believe." She nodded, a expression of surety crossing her face. "If that plot becomes a nightclub again, perhaps the path will be walked upon once more. We shall see."

Elsa left the fire station, the sun high in the sky. Orienting herself, she began to make her way to the church. It was for Anna, she told herself. And perhaps for Kristoff too; who could say?

TPTP

Two crowds were gathered around two different plots, each visible to each other, but far enough apart that neither infringed on the other. Between the plots stood two ethereal beings, sunlight shining through them, and yet somehow glinting off their hair to reflect a sheen of blond or red in the air—not that anyone seemed to see this apart from a young woman in a black dress and silver heels, her blonde hair in a simple plait.

"Will she be okay, Kristoff?"

"She must learn to accept all that she is, Anna. You felt it, then and now."

"The icy force both foul and fair..."

"Indeed. She won't be alone; she will have friends. But it's time for us to go home, Anna."

Across the way, Elsa blinked as the red and blond sheen on the air gleamed even brighter before ceasing to exist. With a heart that felt both heavy and light in equal measure, she turned back to the ceremony. Her friends... for they must have been such—now and in the past—were at peace.


End file.
